


Family Resemblance

by cutecobain



Series: southern and unimpressed with things that aren't america [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 8tracks fic, Americans at Hogwarts oh DEAR, COOL JOKE FAMILY ORIGINS, Gen, HAPPY DUMB BIRTHDAY BOWIEZ, Ravenclaw Forever, george feels i'm not even sorry, teal clique, this is not for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 20:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2665610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutecobain/pseuds/cutecobain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>george experiments with hair color to deal with fred's death, cole and lottie experiment with hair color because they can and also school stress, and a found family of people who like teal becomes recognized by the ministry of magic</p><p>HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOE</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Resemblance

**Author's Note:**

> because i like to share my fandom feels, i sent zoe this tumblr post: http://iblamebuckybarnes.tumblr.com/post/97551030714/unofficialhogwarts-headcanon-that-after-the
> 
> she yelled at me and demanded cool joke family fix it.
> 
> it is her birthday so i cleaned up the text message novel i wrote her and VOLIA! teal clique 4 lyfe.
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUGAR BEAN

When George dyed his hair a lurid yellow two days after the funeral, Molly was furious. She yelled and cried and yelled some more, but the more fuss she made, the more George thought she didn’t even really know why she was upset. Maybe it was because it was something he and Fred would’ve done, dyed their hair a stupid color to distract people from their sorrow, and now it’s just a reminder that Fred wasn’t there to participate. Maybe it was because it genuinely looked awful on him. Who knows. What he did know was his reason for dying it and how much it was going to hurt his mum to hear, but he needed to tell her – needed her to understand. 

“I kept thinking it was him in the mirror,” he said softly as she turned to leave the room, and she turned back towards him so fast that she practically gave herself whiplash. She cried with him for hours that day.

Almost a year and 8 hair colors later, he came across an old photo album hidden away in a tiny nook of his apartment. Smiling, he flipped through it and there, third page, was a picture him and Fred. He has two ears, and Fred is making faces and rude hand gestures at the photographer. It hurt, but not as badly as he thought it might. He missed Fred constantly, but he had the joke shop to keep him busy, and Lee and Ron help. Katie and Alicia were always hanging around, especially since he and Angelina had gotten closer, so he’s not bad off friend-wise. There were Weasley family dinners twice a month at the Burrow, complete with Harry and Hermione, and lately, his new niece Victoire. He feels like he’s actually making a difference in the world. 

So sure, there is a Fred-shaped hole in his life, but it’s a manageable one. And sure, it hurts to remember Fred, but how could he forget?

But that night as he brushed his teeth, he realized that he has forgotten, in a way. He’d forgotten what it’s like to have a double, and what he looked like as himself, without funhouse hair. He hummed to himself and contemplated his reflection in the mirror.

His hair was a vivid purple that month, but it was almost time for a change. He generally changed the color the first of every month, though if he liked the color he might keep it longer (it had been teal for 3 months because little Teddy Lupin seemed to like it so much.)

But maybe it was time to stop with the avoidance and just deal with it. Undoubtedly Fred was enjoying the color wheel wherever it was that he is now, but now that he thought about it, he felt like he was pushing the reality of Fred’s absence away with the hair thing. Muggles say “out of sight, out of mind;” maybe it was time to see if he could handle the reminder. If he couldn’t, well, he could always go back to teal.

His family predictably went mental when he showed up at the next family dinner with the trademark Weasley hair. His mother cried, his brothers settled their betting pool (Charlie won), Ginny grinned so hard it looked painful, but Harry looked at him with understanding. George then remembered, with a jolt of compassion, that everyone always said how much Harry resembles James Potter. 

And so George Weasley’s Hair Phase came to an end. Well, mostly. For the next few years after he went au natural, he still showed up for holidays and his birthdays with his hair dyed. He settled on teal as his trademark color, much to Teddy Lupin’s delight. Whenever George’s hair was teal and Teddy was visiting, George seemed to acquire a shadow with matching teal hair.

\----

By the time Lottie and Cole arrived at Hogwarts, hair dye was a thing of the past for George.

Until, that is, they finally meet him in person before their second year of Hogwarts.  
The girls had been practicing charms and other spells for changing hair color and the like, and had spent a few hours before their Diagon Ally trip attempting to surreptitiously jinx each other. 

George was delighted when they appeared at the shop with brightly colored coifs. Lottie was sporting lavender pigtails and navy eyebrows, while Cole’s pixie cut was neon orange, her eyebrows a royal purple. Cole also had a fantastic moustache to match her eyebrows, but neither girl acted like this was out of the ordinary, so George just went with it. When they explained what exactly had happened to their hair (that is, each other) George laughed and turned his hair teal. He explained his own experiments with hair color, and after exchanging a _look_ the girls studied the color, then faced each other and suddenly, he once again had teal-headed shadows. 

Teal became a thing for the girls as it had for George, and he began to get letters from them that said things like, “Well, yesterday Lottie had a teal day, so we ended up using the Nosebleed Nougat to skip potions and made macaroni for an afternoon snack,” and “W, tomorrow we have 3 exams and a very fiddly potion due and man, it is so going to be a teal day.” He often would receive photos after teal days, of the girls with matching hair, rolling their eyes and pulling faces. At end-of-term exams, he received a picture that made him laugh until Lee stormed into his office space demanding to know what the hell was so funny. The girls had scrawled “TEAL WEEK: YEAR TWO” on the back, and they were dressed head to toe in varying shades of it – teal hair, teal robes, teal shoes. The funniest part of the picture, however, was McGonagall walking through the background and glaring at the two of them. The accompanying letter just said “W- WE GOT DETENTION FOR BREAKING THE DRESS CODE BUT WE GOT ALL O’S ON OUR EXAMS SO TAKE THAT, DRESS CODE!! Love, Teal Family Babies.”

When he wrote back, he addressed them as “My Joke Children” and signed it “Teal Family Father;” they responded to “Joke Dad” and signed “Your COOL Joke Daughters.” 

\----

The Hogsmeade Form Prank was going one of the best, they had thought. Being away from one another during the summer was hard for the girls, so they plotted constantly and talked on the phone practically every night to compare notes and progress. George had met their parents the year before in Diagon Ally and been approved as a suitable temporary parent in case of emergency, so Cole and Lottie thought – how great would it be to have _George_ sign the Hogsmeade form, since he was their Cool Joke Dad of their school-year Cool Joke Family (and the one that their parents were counting on to be their stand-in)? Man, McGonagall was going to be so annoyed. Hilarious. 

Of course, they had made copies that their actual parents had signed, just in case. They weren’t going to lose Hogsmeade privileges before they even really started.

George had signed with flourish, no hesitation, and told them that if the Headmistress gave them trouble about it, to just call him; he’d come straighten it out.

Late in the evening on September 1st, he received an owl – “W- McG is spitting mad that we’re claiming you as a father and refusing to acknowledge your parental claims on us. SOS –C&L” He grinned, picked his most official robes for the next morning, and sent an express owl back: “Never fear, young ones. I’ll be there in the morning. XOXO-W P.S. go teal.”

\----

McGonagall was furious when the three of them entered her office with matching teal hair.  
“How could you say I’m not their father?” George wailed without pausing for pleasantries, “Can’t you see the family resemblance?”

After Minerva kicked them out of her office, George turned to the girls and said, “Well, I guess that’s that kiddos. Better break out your back up letters.”  
He raised his eyebrows as they exchanged a long-suffering look, before giving him twin smirks.  
“G-man,” Lottie said, “If you want to give up that easily, go for it.”  
Cole continued, “But you see, daddy dearest, we’re bros with the minister. So let’s not throw in the towel just yet, mmkay?”  
George looked at them suspiciously. “What exactly are you aiming for, girls?”  
Smirking, Lottie answered, “Just defending the family, W.” Then they kissed his cheek, thanked him for coming all the way to Scotland for them, linked arms, and flounced away.

The next day he received a letter from Kingsley.  
There were these Americans, you see, and they needed a representative, a sort of surrogate on this side of the Atlantic, a parental-ish figure who was also a British citizen.  
They seemed determined to have him be that person, if it wouldn’t be a terrible imposition. If it _was_ an agreeable situation, could he please sign these forms?  
George grinned and signed with gusto, and with that, Cool Joke Family was legally recognized by the magical government. 

The howler he got the next day from Minerva was music to his ears.


End file.
